Seashells
by juumensou
Summary: Why is Kairi so fascinated by seashells? Why does she always wear a seashell around her neck? One-shot. KairixOC friendship, tragedy. Rated "T" for death. I own nothing but my OC!


**Author's Note:** I got this in my head last night and I just remembered it. It popped up when I thought about why Kairi liked seashells so much. I grew up around seashells, and they always hurt my feet. So if she saw something every day, I couldn't help but wonder how she still took interest in them. But maybe I thought too deeply about it. Anyway, you can take it as friendship or romance or both. Have fun with this little KairixOC. Yes, I know it sucks, but it's one in the morning.

**Seashells**

"Hey, Kairi, why do you like seashells that much? You're always wearing that necklace…" Sora muttered, hands behind his head as he walked beside the brunette. She gently touched the white seashell with a finger, a taciturn smile finding its way to her lips…

"I love seashells, don't you?" Aoi murmured with a smile, her chin tucked to her chest as she gazed down at the shells stuck in the wet sand. They never ceased to amaze her; new ones always washed up and she was always ready to add another to her huge collection at home. It made her wonder what kind of creatures had lived in them. Her wet, stringy blonde bangs fell in front of her hazel eyes, and Kairi slicked them to the top of her head for her.

The brunette shrugged, pulling the sea-salt ice pop out of her mouth. Aoi giggled at the blue color of her tongue and lips. "I dunno," she muttered, gazing up at the sky. A few clouds were here and there, one floating leisurely in front of the sun. She would rather watch clouds than seashells, but one always seemed to distract her friend, especially when they went splashing in the shallow areas of the ocean. "I mean, they all look the same and they hurt my feet when I step on them. Why do you like them so much, anyway?"

Aoi leaned down and pried two shells from the sand, holding them out to her brown-haired friend. "See? These two don't look the same." she said with a proud and wide grin on her tanned face. Her lips were the color of the soft pink shells, and paled the farther they stretched.

"Yeah-huh." the girl said stubbornly.

"Nuh-uh!" she yelled, her face turning red. Her grin quickly took its place back on her lips, and she pointed to a horizontal stripe going through the shell in her right hand. "See? This one has a stripe. My mommy says that shells are like people; sometimes they all seem the same, but if you look close enough, you can find a big difference, and that's what makes people beautiful and unique."

Kairi pouted and grabbed the corners of her mouth, pulling on her cheeks to make her bare her teeth. "Grin anymore and you're gonna split your face in two, Aoi," she muttered, pulling harder on her cheeks. The brunette's face brightened as her friend attempted to swat her hands away. "Race you… to that palm tree!" She pointed to a swaying palm tree in the distance, which seemed to wave at them as the warm breeze of Destiny Islands.

The blonde nodded with a look of determination on her face. She always lost their races because she was either too slow or she got distracted by a shell. Kairi took off without a count, and laughed as her friend lagged behind, despite running as fast as she could. "Hey! No fair!" the brown-eyed girl whined. She breathed heavily as she came to a stop, having spotted something glistening in the sand. "You're perfect…"

Aoi knelt down and pulled the shiny shell out of the sand. It had a black inside that boasted the colors of the rainbow, looking glossy as it glistened in the sun. The other side was a sandy white with peach pink stripes that went up and down. Kairi smacked her hand against the palm tree, but when she turned to gloat about her victory, she found that her friend was far behind, examining the shell with a soft smile on her lips. It was different than her usual goofy grin. "What do you need all these shells for anyway?" the older girl asked with an impatient huff. She wanted to celebrate her winning streak, which was twenty to zero, but her friend was too busy playing around with seashells.

"I wanted to make a necklace out of one! This one's perfect, don'tcha think so?" Kairi yanked the shell out of her hands and flipped it in her hands to give it a good examination. It was rather pretty. She hadn't seen one like it in a while. "Wanna help me make it?"

Kairi jumped at the sound of Sora's voice. "Wait, that blonde girl that used to run around with a bucket full of shells?" The brunet laughed at the memory as his friend blushed; she must have gotten lost in thought as she told the story. "What happened to her, anyway?"

"Well…"

Aoi proudly modeled the seashell, which was on a thin string around her neck. Kairi had to agree that the necklace was rather beautiful; it shone in the sunlight when you flipped it to show the inside, and showed off a peach-and-white pattern if the top was revealed instead. "Not bad," she conceded. "Maybe seashells aren't so bad after all."

"Hey, Kairi?" she murmured.

"Yeah, Aoi?"

"If… if I ever have to go away, then… I want you to have the necklace. Okay?" Kairi raised an eyebrow as she smiled gently at her, and nodded. The moment was ruined when the blonde nearly fell flat on her back when a wave brushed against her feet, and Kairi laughed. "S-shut up! It's not my fault I can't swim! You're mean…" she puled, her thin lower lip jutting out.

"You _can_ swim, you just don't want to," The brunette lifted the sea-salt ice pop in her hand and waved it around. "If you swim to where your feet can't touch, I'll give you my ice pop!" Aoi frowned at her friend. "If you don't, then you're just a chicken."

"I am not! I'll show you!"

The blonde stomped to the water, swallowing when the waves brushed against her ankles. She had never really learned how to swim, as, despite being surrounded by it, the water scared her. She could feel her shoulders shake as the hot sun beat down on her back, and she lifted her head, slowly making her way in to the seawater until it was up to her upper arms and she was on her tiptoes. "Keep going!" Kairi shouted, hands cupped to her lips. Aoi pouted and stuck out her tongue in a childish manner, and her friend mimicked it.

Aoi sucked in a shaky breath through her teeth and continued to make her way in to the water. She flailed her arms wildly when her toes stopped touching the sand, and she found that she was moving in the direction opposite of the shore. She couldn't stop; she was too panicked and anxious to get out of the water. "H-help!" she cried, splashing around in the sparkling water. Even when it was attempting to suck her under, it still looked so beautiful. Its innocence beauty hid the dark nature that was pulling her down, making her inhale water and spit it back out when she was lucky to have her head bob back up.

"I-I'm coming!" Kairi squalled, running as fast as possible through the water. Her legs were slow and felt heavy from swimming earlier, but she continued to move. She couldn't just leave Aoi to drown! The blonde continued to flail her arms like a madman, as if she thought it was helping. The brunette panted as she swam through the waves that seemed to try to pull her back to the shore, trying to keep her gaze on her friend. Aoi's head had disappeared from the surface, and only a few bubbles popped on the top of the water.

The brunette stuck her head under the water, but it was too hazy to see anything and it burned her eyes. "**Help**!" she screamed, kicking herself back up so she wouldn't sink. "Someone help me!" She felt something brush against her foot as her tears stung her red and heated cheeks with the seawater, but when she managed to get a blurry view of her ankle, she found that it was only Aoi's necklace.

Kairi was towed from the water with the help of the mayor, but she refused to release the necklace. A few adults searched for the girl's body, and she recalled seeing a woman with platinum blonde hair like her friend's sobbing quietly in the background, but that was all.

"Oh… I-I didn't know," Sora mumbled. "I didn't mean to bring it up. I just didn't think you were so close with her, I didn't even…"

"It's okay, Sora." the brunette said with a gentle smile. It was sorrowful, and her eyes were filled with melancholy at the reminder of the memory, her fingers tightly wrapped around the seashell.

"Doesn't that necklace make you sad, though?"

"No… She'd want me to have it. And now… I'll always love seashells."


End file.
